


Button

by sanashi27



Series: Short Stories [3]
Category: South Park
Genre: Fluff, M/M, friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 23:20:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18041015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanashi27/pseuds/sanashi27
Summary: The last night they'd all be able to hang out together before they prepare for college.





	Button

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I worked on my first zine a couple of months back and this was my piece! We weren't allowed to do ships and stuff (not allowed to write swearing, too) so I could only sneak in a bit of creek. So creek if you squint lol. Also, I tried to put so many characters in this that I might have forgotten to list a few up there. Sorry!
> 
> Hope you all enjoy this! It was hard trying to squeeze all these in with a 2.5k word limit. I suck at word limits.

“Cheers!”

Simultaneous clanking of several soda cans rang in the air for a moment. Many different snacks and drinks litter the table in the living room and surrounding it are several teenagers having their fill. It was the last night they can have a get-together before things get busy with entrance exams, applications, and important preparations as many of them are moving away for college.

Kenny smiled at the thought - going to college. He never thought he’d get this far but his parents luckily mellowed out through the years and with Kevin had been pulling all their money into putting Karen through school leaving his salary for his own schooling.

“I can’t wait to leave this place for college!” Red exclaimed, raising both hands in the air.

“Same. I’ll finally get away from the craziness of this place…” Kyle said before side-eyeing Cartman who’s seated at the other end of the couch “and a certain someone.”

“Hey!” Cartman angrily gets up and points a finger at Kyle “What’s that supposed to mean you--!”

“Jeez! Quit it! This is gonna be the last time we get to party together and you’re still fighting with each other?” Bebe brushed the hair of her face and took another drink “We’re supposed to be having fun!”

“Speaking of which, what do we do after this?” Clyde asked as he looked around him “We can’t just be eating the whole night. We gotta do something fun!”

Everyone went silent for a moment to think of an answer until Stan spoke up “Hey, how ‘bout that thing?”

“What thing?” Butters asked and everyone looked up and stared at Stan who was sitting at the armrest of one of the sofas.

“Remember years ago when we made one of those time capsule-thingies?”

“Yeah! And I remember you guys not wanting us to join in.” Nichole reminisced.

“Only Cartman didn’t. The rest of us were okay with you girls joining in.” Kyle corrected.

“Yeah, that one!” Stan nodded “Why don’t we go and dig it up?”

 

* * *

 

“Gah! It’s cold tonight.” Tweek rubbed his arms as he shivered slightly when the cold wind blew.

“Y-yeah. M-might be because it’s really l-late.” Jimmy stuttered. No one could tell if it’s his usual stutter or due to the cold.

“That’s cause you guys didn’t wear jackets!” Clyde pointed out “I don’t know how you guys survive without one.”

Kenny pulled on the cord of his parka, happy that he didn’t have to worry about the cold with it.

The entire group left Token’s house at nearly 11 pm and decided to walk over to Stark’s Pond where the time capsule is buried instead of driving over underestimating how cold it would become. Even when it couldn’t be ignored anymore they pressed on as they were halfway through their little journey and soon enough, Stark’s Pond was in sight.

“We’re here!” Stan exclaimed as he along with some of the others ran towards the trees where the box had been buried.

“Hmm… I don’t remember where we buried it.” Wendy looked around hoping to find any hint.

“We placed a rock on top of the place where it’s buried. Just look for a large rock.” Kyle pointed out. The others nodded and soon they found two different trees which had large rocks near their base.

“So, which one is it?” Cartman asked which earned him shrugs “What? So were digging both up?! That’s it, I’m going home!”

“Wait, Eric!” Butters runs up and pulling back Cartman back who was walking away.

“Quit complaining, Cartman.” Kyle walks over to one of the trees and bends down to move the rock out of the way “It’s just two and there’s a bunch of us. Let’s just do this quickly.”

Turns out only two people actually remembered to bring anything useful to what they were about to do - Token brought a spade from his house and Kyle had borrowed a serving spoon he promised to return. The rest has to use either a rock, stick or their hands.

“Darn it.” Cartman muttered as he dug alongside Stan, Kyle and Kenny.

“Shut up and just dig.” Kyle snapped at him. When the spoon finally hit something at the end, they looked at each other and grinned, getting the dirt out faster than before.

When they finally got it out, they were met with disappointment upon seeing that it was just another rock.

Stan sighed “Don’t say it…”

“We wasted our time digging and it’s just a rock?!” Cartman yells in frustration.

“We know!” Kyle exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose trying to keep calm “We’re right here!”

An argument is starting to brew within Stan’s group with Butters trying to calm everyone down and Kenny standing by not wanting to deal with it. Craig sighed as he watched the other group’s actions while Token just ignored them and continued digging “Guys, you can stop now.”

Stan’s group turned towards the others and smiled as they saw a grinning Clyde holding up a blue box. A smile appeared on the others’ faces as they quickly walked over to Craig’s group to check it out pushing at each other to get a better view.

 

* * *

 

“We were so cute back then!” Bebe said holding up their class picture.

“Lemme see!” Nichole asked borrowing the picture.

Clyde chuckles as he held up a drawing “Remember this, Craig?”

“Wha-” Craig blushed as he snatched the paper out of his friend’s hand “Give me that!”

“L-look! It’s us as the-the Freedom Pals!” Jimmy excitedly holds up the picture with all of them wearing their hero garbs.

“And that’s me as ‘Professor Chaos’!” Butters grins pointing out his younger self on the picture.

Cartman excitedly pulls out a piece of fabric from the box which says ‘ _Who is the Coon?_ ’ with a logo on the bottom “Pfft… you guys are lame! ‘Coon and Friends’ is still cooler…”

“My crown!” Kyle exclaims as he picks up the branches that was used as his Elf King Crown smiling as he inspects it.

“Ugh… I almost forgot about this.” Stan holds up the medal Al Gore gave him reminding him of the Manbearpig Incident.

Kenny grins as he picks up and wears the blonde wig he used as ‘Princess Kenny’ (which is too small for him now) and watched as everyone else took something nostalgic out of the box be it a trinket or drawing. He on the other hand held a letter - It was just a piece of notebook paper inside a small white envelope. Opening it, he sees the messy handwriting of his 10-year old self.

‘ _Dear Future Kenny_ ,’ it reads ‘ _How’s everything? Is Karen okay? She’s still going to school, right?_ ’ Kenny leafs through the rest of the letter where little him asks about what jobs he’s taking now, about his friends - where they are now, what jobs and if they’re already married, and lastly if he still moonlights as Mysterion. He chuckles. It was too early for them to be opening their letters.

“We shouldn’t have dug this up too early.” Red said voicing out Kenny’s earlier concern “Our letters are asking us about something way into the future.”

“Well, the ‘future’ we were thinking about back when we made these was ‘adult’ future.” Scott says as he folds his letter and returns it to its envelope and the rest followed suit.

“Hey fellas, why don’t we make a new one right now seeing as some of us are gonna leave soon?” Butters suggested.

“That’s an awesome idea, Butters!” Stan pumps his fist in the air “We can meet up after a couple of years to dig it up again.”

“I went s-straight to Token’s after sch-school so I got papers and some pens.” Jimmy opens his bag and pulls out a notebook.

“Same.” Kyle said holding out his own bag “I was at the library before going to the party.”

“I was gonna use this for my stuff so I took it earlier but here.” Butters pulled out the cookie tin which held biscuits earlier.

“Can we ask for some paper then?”

 

* * *

 

Kenny placed his letter on top of the growing pile inside the tin. They had no envelopes on hand so they had to make do with just taping the letters slightly shut. With school ending soon and not needing it anymore, some of them threw their IDs inside while the others threw in some random trinkets or pictures on hand.

“Wish we brought more stuff.” Clyde said lamenting that they weren’t able to fill the tin to the brim like the older one - a sentiment the others shared.

“Is this all?” Wendy asked looking at the others one by one as she carried the tin. When she was sure there wasn’t anything else to be added, she turned towards Butters who placed the lid back on securing it tightly.

“Do we put it back in the same hole with the old one?” Bebe asked as she carried the blue box.

“Can’t we bury it somewhere else? This time somewhere we can actually remember?” Craig suggested.

“He’s got a point. I’d rather not dig and find another rock years later.” Cartman said in agreement.

“Oh wait, look at that guys!” Clyde pointed towards one of the trees at the back with his phone’s light to illuminate a carving on its trunk.

“Aww!” the girls cooed simultaneously.

“That’s…” Tweek covered his reddening face.

“We should bury it under that tree!” Clyde exclaims earning a ‘Yes’ from everyone much to Tweek’s embarrassment “It’s part of our childhood after all.”

“Gah…”

The group buried the tin and placed the blue box on top before covering it all up in dirt and snow and finished as the sun was about to come up. They dusted their hands off and stared at the ground where they buried it for a moment before finally deciding it was time to leave.

Clyde looks back at the area where the buried the boxes “If I’d known we’d be making a new time capsule, I’d have brought more things to put in it.”

“What else can we put in there anyways?” Scott asked “We hadn’t really hung out much after middle school.”

“We’ve all just been so busy in high school.” Wendy replies thoughtfully “With college coming up and all.”

“It got you guys busy all the time!” Stan exclaims “You and the others are still visiting school _on vacation_!”

“We have paperwork to deal with, Stan.” Kyle explains “You have some too but not as much as we do.”

“Cause ya’ll are nerds?” Cartman teases, not even hiding the smirk on his face.

“It’s ‘cause we have a bright future.” Kyle grins back as he corrected an annoyed Cartman “Unlike you.”

“Speaking of which,” Token yawns and stretches his arms “We need sleep to do preparations later to secure our _‘bright futures’_.”

“Ah, college! I can’t wait to meet a bunch of new people! We’ve all been classmates since grade school.” Red says raising her hands in the air “It’ll be good to meet others not from this town.”

“And it’ll be so much fun ‘cause we’d be able to do a bunch of stuff we weren’t allowed to do before, too!” Cartman excitedly points out.

“Don’t do anything stupid when you guys leave, okay?” Wendy’s eyes sweeps over the boys with her hands on her hips and then stopping on Stan and his friends “I don’t want to see you guys on the news!”

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Craig says with a smirk as he looks at Stan’s group “I bet they’d get in trouble the moment they step outta town.”

“Hey!” Cartman attempted to push Craig but the latter was able to dodge, laughing at the failed attempt.

“Seriously though,” Nichole says thoughtfully “Please take care of yourselves. All of you.”

“Yeah. No one will be there to bail you out anymore.” Wendy adds before she looks down “With college and all...”

“I’m close to crying, guys.” Clyde says as they continued to walk.

“Don’t. Please. It’s not like we’re never gonna see each other again after college.” Kyle points out “Plus, some are gonna visit for the holidays.”

“Yeah and we have Facebook and maybe Discord...” Bebe adds

“You okay dude?” Craig worriedly asked Tweek who looks nervous. The latter seem to have replied in a whisper “It’s okay, you can tell us.”

“Ack! It’s stupid but I just can’t help but worry…” the blond was about to pull at his hair but was stopped by Craig “What if we you all found new friends out there and forget about us? Or what if you guys like it out there so much that you won’t ever wanna come back?”

Kenny remembered that Tweek is one of those who weren’t going away for college due to their family business. He didn’t think he’d be leaving for college before as well and shared the same thoughts months ago.

“That would never happen!” Clyde assured him “We’d be friends forever!”

“That’s right!” Nichole walks over to Tweek and pats the latter on the back “Like Red said earlier, we’ve been friends since we were kids. A few years of college won’t change that.”

“It’s not gonna be a _‘Goodbye’_ forever. Just _‘See you next time’_ , I guess?” Stan says as he rubs the back of his head “This might sound cheesy and childish but you’ll see - we’ll all be back here together someday. Plus, we need to dig up those boxes, too!”

Craig placed an arm on Tweek’s shoulders and Clyde does the same to Token and soon everyone is getting pulled into a huddle.

“This is sooo gay.” Cartman comments as he’s in between Butters and Kenny “Nothing wrong with that but still…”

“If you’re gonna complain so much.” Kyle smirks as he says it to the boy across him “Why don’t you just leave?”

Cartman narrows his eyes and smiles back at the other as if challenging him “Why don’t you?”

“Quit it!” Wendy scolds them, eyes flitting between the two.

“Alright!” Kenny yells out gaining everyone’s attention “So it’s a promise – we’d all come back here someday AND we’d still be friends.”

“We s-till don’t know when that’d be with our confli-conflic-- different schedules but yeah, it’s a promise.” Jimmy replied earning a nod from the others with them all saying that they promise it as well.

“See? It’s all gonna be okay.” Craig tells Tweek finally making the blond smile and nod as his other friends pat him on the back.

As they all started again on their walk back to town, Kenny watched his friends’ retreating backs. He knows things will change and nothing is permanent but this town that barely changes will still be here forever, just like the bonds that they hold dear and they’d still be friends when they all meet again someday just like they promised.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being a bit too sappy.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope they weren't out of character. I tried giving everyone a line so not everyone got a lot of 'screentime'.
> 
> The title refers to the song that inspired the story: 'Button' by Penguin Research (youtube.com/watch?v=87XIGXkQMd8)


End file.
